Painted Buntings at the Visitor Center

 Florida 2013 continued (the never ending blog series!)

My mom and I finished up the Black Point Wildlife Drive at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and headed over to the Visitor Center. It was near 1:00 so we had lunch in the van then walked the boardwalk at the center looking for songbirds. Not the best time of day for birding, I admit, but again, when your time is limited you take what you can get.

There wasn't much going on along the boardwalk, but there were several different woodpeckers active along one stretch. We saw a red-bellied and a hairy, and this male yellow-bellied sapsucker. This is not a bird I see around home, and I didn't have very good images of it, so I was happy to spend a few minutes following him through the trees.

Male yellow-bellied sapsucker. The female lacks the red neck patch.

I like catching birds in motion, especially when they are just taking flight. You get some pretty interesting poses. Wings up and back, ready to flap, I love how his feet are sticking out like he's still clinging to the tree.

We walked back to the Visitor Center to check out the feeders. This is where the painted buntings are most likely to be seen. I imagine this is one of the most photographed feeders in the country. I set up my tripod and waited, and within a few minutes this little green bird flew up. I had no idea what it was. Duh.

Oooo, a mystery bird!

Shortly after we got there a couple we'd met on the boardwalk joined us. One of the women was new to birding, and her partner had been pointing out the differences in the woodpeckers. The novice watched the green bird through her binoculars while the other got out her bird book. She'd been birding around the world so I'm a little surprised she didn't just know what this was--and rattle off its Latin name while she was at.

Anyway, she flipped the pages and then said, "Ah, a female painted bunting!"  Yeah, I should have figured that one out! Look at that beak!

Female painted bunting. She would blend in very well with the lush foliage of the south.

 Shortly after ID-ing the female, the male made an appearance.

Male painted bunting. Nothing else in the States can compare, in my opinion. What a privilege to be able to see one.

Just can't get enough of this amazingly colorful bird!

Oh, this shot has potential--I love the pose! I have done an indigo bunting, and have snow bunting images from last winter. Do I see a series in the making?

And now I have a confession. The birds took off soon after this but the female stuck around (there were actually two of them) and posed prettily in a bush next to the feeder. I took lots of shots, happy to see the birds in a more natural setting. But at home, sorting through several thousand images, these all got deleted before I copied them to my computer. What I do is make folders for all the species and/or places, and copy the images to the folders, kind of sorting as I go. I must have thought I'd copied them when I deleted the images from the camera card--and when you delete images from the card, they are deleted permanently. I've checked the card and my flash drive, where I had also stored some images, but they are no where to be seen. I guess I can check the laptop as a last resort but I fear the worst. Ah well, we learn as we go. I am happy then to have any shots of her at all. Sigh.

Next: A chance encounter along the boardwalk.

Spoonbills and Ibis

 Florida 2013 continued

Once the clapper rail had moved off into the mangroves we got back in the van and drove a bit farther along the Black Point Drive. We didn't get far before I saw a group of wading birds very near the road. Among them were a couple of glossy ibis, a bird I had some very poor photos of from a previous Florida trip. They were moving fairly quickly so I didn't get very many images, but they are WAY better than what I had.

Glossy ibis pair feeding near shore. Pretty bird with iridescent feathers--I see purple, red and green.

This one caught a fish. You can see the reflection of roseate spoonbills to the right.

There was a group of roseate spoonbills preening in the shallows. I took what may well be the best spoonbill images I ever will when we were in Florida last year, so I didn't spend a whole lot of time with them. That's the downside of only having one day in the park--you've got to keep moving to make sure you get all the way through. It was fun though watching the group doing their morning calisthenics.

The always odd yet gorgeous roseate spoonbill.

Suddenly there was a crowd!

Spoonbills with white and glossy ibis.

Then Bob pointed out a group of greater yellowlegs a bit farther along the road. I had just gotten the camera on them when they took off. Dang!

Shortly after this we arrived at the half-way point of the drive, and the bathrooms. We stopped to use the facilities, and parted ways with Bob and Joyce of Crow Tours. We traded business cards and they gave us some good tips for other places to bird in central Florida. Who knows, maybe we'll hook up with them down the road.

At this point the road turns towards the east and into a slightly more elevated area, which changes the habitat dramatically. There's less water and more trees and grassland. This is where we usually see large numbers of coots, and farther along in the deeper ditches one is nearly guaranteed to find alligators. This day was no exception, but I'm not a big gator fan, so I stopped for my mom to take a look then drove on. I wanted to get to the Visitor Center to look for songbirds and have some lunch--I was hungry!!

Next: Buntings, sapsuckers and a surprise appearance at the Visitor Center.

Clapper Rail

Florida 2013 continued

This year's Florida blog is taking a long time. That's OK, really, since winter is in no hurry to loosen its grip here in Michigan. A few more posts and I should be done.

While I was photographing the American bittern that my mother had spotted from the van, she had wandered farther down the road.  Withing a few minutes she called out yet another bird. Bob and Joyce, the birders we'd met along the way, and I rushed to see what she'd found this time.

There in the ditch was a rail, working its way from the far to near shore. I only managed a few shots before it was out of view. I was so excited to have seen yet another new bird, but frustrated at not getting good shots or even knowing exactly what it was.

A rail, but which one??

I went back to shooting the bittern when mom found another rail on the other side of the road. We all jockeyed into position. "Clapper rail!" someone called out. I really couldn't believe my luck. They started calling my mother Ol' Eagle Eye.

Clapper rail working the mudflats along the ditch.

She worked her way through the mangrove knees, then veered away from the water and out of sight. I got distracted by a pair of Great Southern white butterflies feeding along the side of the road.

Within a few moments the rail emerged again. You can see why they're so hard to find! Anyone cruising down the road at 10 mph would never see this bird.

She made her way into deeper water. None of these birds were living up to their shy reputations. Perhaps the rather cold night (lower 40's) had caused them to burn more calories to stay warm and forced them to feed a bit more carelessly.

She continued down the water's edge, belly deep in the muck, until she moved off again into the mangroves and out of sight.  

How far would you or I sink in this muck?!?

What an amazing morning it had been. I took this image at around noon, which meant in about two hours I'd seen and photographed four new species. That would be the end of the firsts for me (bird-wise anyway) but there were still some exciting encounters to come.

Next: Finish the Black Point Drive, morning version, then off to the Visitor Center.

Artwork--Giraffe

I am not sure what it is about giraffes but I discovered pretty early on in my art career that people are nuts about them. I did a couple of giraffe pieces when I first started doing shows because I happened to have a bunch of images from a trip to the Brevard County Zoo in Florida from years back. They were in graphite, done before I switched to pen and ink and colored pencil.

This happens to be one of those pieces I did eight years ago, and I decided to reproduce it in color because I have always liked this pose. It was taken from an observation deck and so is from an angle one would not normally see a giraffe from. This is a young female, several feet shorter than the adults that were in the enclosure with her.

"Spot On", colored pencil and ink, 22.5 x 11.5, $950.00

Prints will be forthcoming and can be ordered directly from my website, www.marierust.com

American Bittern!

Florida 2013 continued

After seeing the sora and the loggerhead shrike I was pretty geeked. We'd only been in the park for 45 minutes or so and I already had two new birds (the reddish egret and the sora) and had seen a behavior I'd never witnessed (the shrike impaling the warbler). I'd also met some birders who we ended up hanging with for a little while, Bob and Janet Sanders of Crow Tours, who lead birding tours in Central Florida (you can reach them at 407-454-0542).

We returned to our vans and crept along the Black Point drive. It was not too long--only a few tenths of a mile perhaps--before my mother pointed out another bird on the far bank of the canal that runs along the road. I leaned forward and looked out her window to see an American bittern standing motionless in the water, right out in the open. I couldn't believe our luck!

The ever watchful American bittern.

Bob and Joyce pulled in behind us and we all got out to photograph and gawk. It's fun when people who see lots of birds still get as excited about a bird they've seen dozens of times as someone who has never seen one. I think we feed off each other.

I moved a little farther down the road to get some profile shots.

Then the bittern started to walk away through the shallow water. I hoped we weren't bothering it--the bird was literally less than 10 feet away.

I think it looks like an armadillo from behind.

 I finally picked up the tripod and scurried around to catch up.

I thought for a moment it was going to assume its defensive position, where it lifts its head up and points its beak to the sky in an attempt to look like grasses and reeds along the bank. That would have been neat to see, but instead the bird continued down the canal.

This image has great possibilities!

Herons and cranes, with their eyes located pretty far forward, have limited binocular vision which helps with depth perception when hunting prey. Here the bittern is clearly studying the water off to the side...

 

...while here it is looking forward.

It is amazing to me how perfectly colored and patterned this bird is, mirroring the colors and patterns of its habitat, right down to the greenish-yellow bill and legs.

It looks like it's about to call out, but it never made a sound.

I kept waiting for the bird to strike, but it never did. Ah well, you can't have everything!

As I was taking in the bittern I heard my mom, from farther up the road, announce that she'd found another bird....


Next:  The firsts continue!

A Sora and the Butcher Bird

Florida 2013 continued

I could have stayed with the reddish egret all day, but we had a lot of ground to cover yet. My plan was to get around Black Point Drive, head over to the Visitor Center to look for songbirds, then do the Black Point Drive again in the evening. We hadn't gotten far when I spotted three Northern shovelers close to the road. I stopped and hopped out. This is a bird I've seen before but didn't have very good images of. Unfortunately I didn't do much to improve on what I already had.

Northern shovelers, two males and a female.

For the most part, this was all I saw of them.

"Um, excuse me? Over here! Oh hell...."

Where the drive makes its first big turn to the right there is a large parking area (sponsored, I think, by Ducks Unlimited) and a couple of short trails along the levee tops. One of them has two wooden observation platforms, so we parked and walked down to the first platform. There were many shorebirds in the shallow water and mud flats along the levee. My heart sinks a little when I see these birds because they are so damned hard to identify.

I think these are dunlin. Hard to tell so far away.

These least sandpipers were quick to take to the air, zipping here and there, alighting and taking off again en masse. How do I know they are least sandpipers? I can assure you I didn't when I took the picture. I got home and looked them up in Sibley's....

Least sandpipers on the wing.

...and ID'd them thanks to these two birds. Considering range and habitat is important, too, but three things stood out:  Greenish-yellow legs (unique among sandpipers, or peeps, according to Sibley); white outer tail feathers and dark, V-shaped upper tail coverts; and the white wing bar.

This is why it is important to have a bird guide that shows them in flight!

Going through my photos I discovered this little guy, different still from the other shorebirds. This bird's short, thick beak puts it in the plover family. Based on size and winter range I think it's a black-bellied plover.

ID-ing shorebirds would be so much easier if I saw them in summer, wearing their breeding plumage. They all look the same in winter!!

When we had first pulled up to the parking area there was a group of birders with cameras and scopes pointed into the shrubbery. They were leaving by the time we got to the trail, but I overheard one say something about a shrike. I looked around but didn't see one. But while I was watching the shorebirds someone flew past. I looked and saw this loggerhead shrike perched atop the signpost. I was thrilled to get a few good images before it flew off again. I had seen one before but at a much greater distance.

Loggerhead shrike posing nicely. Later he would not be so nice....

On our way back to the car from the observation platform we met up with another group of birders. I have decided that this is one of the best things that can happen when you're birding alone, especially in an area you're not all that familiar with. The fellow leading the group (I forget this name now) had a pretty good idea where certain birds tended to be, and within minutes he had pointed out one of my target birds for the trip--a SORA! (This was probably what the first group had been watching.)

I have to admit here that I was one of those really annoying people who, no matter how hard I looked, could not find this bird at first. I could see where everyone else was looking but I just couldn't find it. I didn't realize she was in the water. Just a little embarrassing.

Most of the images I got looked like this, with some part of her blocked by foliage.

Male and female soras look alike, so I have no real idea if this is a male or female.

I did get a few clear shots. I was just excited to have seen one! She was either eating the algae off the roots of this mangrove or picking something out of the algae, I couldn't quite tell which.

While this was going on one of the fellas in the group announced that behind us, in a shrub on the other side of the levee, a shrike (possibly the one I'd photographed earlier) had caught a common yellowthroat (a warbler) and impaled it on a branch and was eating it.

WHAT?!?!?

We all scurried to the other side of the trail, trying to catch a glimpse. There were a few gasps. This is common behavior for shrikes but the general consensus was that no one had seen a shrike impale a bird before. Grasshoppers, frogs, things like that, but never a bird. I didn't get a very clear look at the scene, but I'm kind of OK with that. Yeesh.

It's not called the "Butcher Bird" for nothing! Shrikes don't have the strong feet and talons of raptors so after they catch and kill their prey they impale it on a thorn so they can tear it up and eat it. Mmmmm!

 After the dismembered warbler fell off the thorn and out of sight, I went back over to the sora.

Ahhh....

Next: More firsts, thanks to Mom's eagle eye!

Reddish Egret Video

After dithering around for over an hour trying to find, download and install video editing software, and then editing the video to a size Blogger would accept, I am finally done. The quality is poor--it was not shot this way but it was the only way to get it to upload. If I can get better quality video to post I will.

The wind is howling into the mic, and the rustle you can hear is the palm tree I'm standing next to, as sort of camouflage.This was taken with my Canon 60D mounted on a ball head on my tripod--not the best for shooting nice steady video, I have discovered. Plus, I am sure there is a way to adjust the exposure but I didn't know how. I will have to work on my videography!

The bird wandering around in the background is a little blue heron. Despite the poor quality this still makes me laugh every time I see it.